Re: problems getting static ip to work

[jdthood@yahoo.co.uk (Thomas Hood)]

> I have a laptop running Debian, whose network interface is a pcmcia card.
> I use it as an IMAP mail server. Recently, I tried giving it a static IP
> address.
> by changing /etc/pcmcia/network.opts and filling in the appropriate
> fields  (I actually used pcnetconfig, so it generated the file for me)
> My /etc/network/interfaces looks like this
> auto lo
> iface lo inet loopback
> eth0
>  iface eth0 inet static
> address 192.168.2.6
> netmask 255.255.255.0
>  network 192.168.2.0
> gateway 192.168.2.1


This is invalid.  The 'eth0' on its own line shouldn't be there.
The rest is OK:

  auto lo
  iface lo inet loopback

  iface eth0 inet static
	address 192.168.2.6
	netmask 255.255.255.0
	network 192.168.2.0
	gateway 192.168.2.1


> ifconfig -a
> does seem to give me information that eth0 is configured (I can even it
> ping it from another machine on the network)
>  
> I am noticing 2 problems.
>  
> On boot up I get a "neighbor table overflow" message. I was told this
> has something to do with the loopback not being configured, but I
> thought my interfaces file should take care of this.

Yes it should.

  
> More importantly, my IMAP daemon does not seem to be retrieving any mail
> from my Pop server.
> I tried doing a
> % telnet 127.0.0.1 imap2
>  
> and it hangs......
>  
> I think I'm going in circles here and I'd appreciate it if someone can
> explain to me what the problem is and how I might fix it?

Try eliminating the 'network' line from the eth0 iface definition.

--
Thomas